Fighting the Fear Babe with Kavin Senapathy

The Skeptic Studio

Oct. 14, 2016 Episode 56

Hi and welcome to the Brainstorm podcast Skeptic Studio where we do interviews, major topics, and news related to skepticism and atheism. I’m Cory and my panel tonight are Destin, Angela, Leo, and Rene, with the always amazing Dave doing sound. We’re here in Roman Empire studios in Regina, Saskatchewan and today is October 14th, 2016. The Skeptic Studio is brought to you by Reasonist Ink, atheist, skeptic, and science based apparel. You can find them at www.reasonistink.com. Tonight’s guest is Kavin Senapathy, she is an author, speaker, and science activist who writes about health, medicine, genomics, agriculture and food. She's the co-Executive Director of international pro-science, pro-biotech movement March Against Myths, and co-author of “The Fear Babe: Shattering Vani Hari’s Glass House,”. She's also a regular contributor to Forbes and The Genetic Literacy Project.

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Last week Justin Trudeau and his government announced a carbon tax minimum bench mark for the provinces of Canada to reach and hopefully exceed. This led to outrage among conservative Canadians, but none more than Brad Wall and his Sask party supporters. Many of these people are still climate change deniers. They say things like, “CO2 isn’t a pollutant”, or “Canada only produces 1.6% of the world’s CO2 emissions”. Some are still of the opinion that climates change and that this is all we’re seeing right now, normal changes.

It occurs to me that somehow every conservative in Canada must be a climate expert and that they should all take their research and findings to the IPCC and get the appropriate media attention. They’ve clearly found something that the vast majority of climate scientists haven’t. I know they all have their numbers, I already mentioned Canada’s contribution to CO2 emissions being only 1.6%, or they have their cherry picked stats from select years or select segments of years. They have arguments about parts per million in the atmosphere and they have one or two self proclaimed experts to back them up. There are even a couple organizations with the word science in their name to lend credibility to all of their data. If that sounds familiar, then you’ve been paying attention to the evolution debate that’s going on with creationists.

I’m not an expert, this is why I listen to people who are and right now the scientific consensus is that climate change is real, is happening, and is caused by human use of fossil fuels. The only number that matters to me as a layman, is 97%. That’s 97% of climate research points at and agrees with the conclusion that the burning of fossil fuels by humans is the main cause of climate change and that it needs to be addressed by at least a reduction in emissions and if possible, a removal of already present emissions from the atmosphere. It’s important to not that this is not just some poll, taken by a bunch of scientists. This is not merely their opinion, though there have been polls done and the number of climate researchers who agree about climate change is at least 97%. This consensus is a consensus of real data and research. This is enough to demonstrate that beyond a shadow of a doubt, climate change is real.

If you have a better plan than a carbon tax, then point it out. If you have a solution, then fill society in. If you’re just going to keep denying that we’re polluting, if you’re just going to keep spreading the lies propagated by the fossil fuel industry and their non scientist, hired experts, then shut the fuck up and let the rest of us try to solve the problem.

The music Break

This is where we’ll take the break for music. For Live listeners and Patrons you can enjoy the next few minutes and then we’ll be back. For regular feed subscribers this is where we’ll end the skeptic studio. I hope you enjoyed it. Remember to subscribe on Itunes, google play or some other podcatcher and check out the show notes at Theskepticstudio.com. we’ll have shift to reason radio for you next week.. If you can’t wait for it then listen live at www.Spreaker.com/show/brainstorm-podcast or go become a patron at www.Patreon.com/brainstormpodcast. So here’s the music break – Bring the Ruckus by Wutang Clan in honor of Luke Cage coming out on Netflix, 2nd sucks by A day to remember because it’s awesome and , A Metal cover of Sail originally by Awolnation but the cover is by Frog Leap Studios. So, enjoy and we’ll see you in a few minutes.

Shift To Reason Radio

To those listening live or to our patrons, welcome back. For those listening weekly, welcome to Shift To Reason radio the Brainstorm production that focuses on science outreach and education. We’ll try our hand at teaching you a little bit about common skeptical topics, logical fallacies and errors in reasoning, as well as a bit about some religious apologetics. This episode is brought to you by audible.com, sign up for your free trial membership and free audiobook at audibletrial.com/brainstorm.

in common parlance it is used in a variety of contexts, when discussed as a fallacy, equivocation only occurs when the arguer makes a word or phrase employed in two (or more) different senses in an argument appear to have the same meaning throughout.[1][2]han one meaning or sense (by glossing over which meaning is intended at a particular time).

The fallacy of equivocation occurs when a key term or phrase in an argument is used in an ambiguous way, with one meaning in one portion of the argument and then another meaning in another portion of the argument.

The laws imply lawgivers. There are laws in nature. Therefore there must be a cosmic lawgiver

“”But of course any God capable of intelligently designing something as complex as DNA/protein replicating machinemust have been at least as complex and organized as the machine itself. Far more so if we suppose him additionally capable of such advanced functions as listening toprayersand forgiving sins. To explain the origin of the DNA/protein machine by invoking a supernaturalDesigner is to explain precisely nothing, for it leaves unexplained the origin of the Designer. You have to say something like "God was always there", and if you allow yourself that kind of lazy way out, you might as well just say "DNA was always there", or "Life was always there", and be done with it.

“This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!”

Listener Feedback and shoutouts

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Itunes reviews

by atheistmom 5 stars

What a fun bunch! I love how they are so skeptical, and willing to change their views based on evidence.

Listener emails

Will sent us an email letting us know that the dead baby jokes were not over the line but were so funny he got a headache and almost blacked out because he couldn’t breathe from laughing so hard. He also sent a diagram of his cubical environment. I think he must be disturbing at least 6 people when he listens to our show.

Brother Brewer

Email Address: skepticsbrewpub@gmail.com

Subject: Tumor Research you mentioned

Message: I was listening to your show when I heard you talk about immunoresearch with cancer cells. It just so happens Lauren Udhe (aka The Biology Babe) is a graduate student who is working on that very study in Portland. She is on Facebook as Biology Babe if you want to ever look her up. I interviewed her on my own show a couple weeks ago and she is a fabulous guest that will talk your ear off!

So that’s where we’re going to end the episode. Before we go I want to make sure to mention our website, Brainstormblog.net. We have comprehensive show notes, including any notes that I’ve made regarding my stories and any notes that the rest of the crew gives me for theirs.

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Thanks for listening and we’ll see you in a couple weeks when we bring on our new crew member; Lisa to see how she likes being part of the crew.